Malela
by Tsar Bomba
Summary: She traded life for happiness, with no regrets at all. It left a rotten emptiness, it left her feeling small. Rated M for sexual situations and language.
1. Chapter 1

This is a ramble-y drabble inspired by the song Malela. I was in a weird mood when I wrote this, so I apologize in advance for any errors/mistakes/crappy writing.

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><p>Young smoothskin. That's what they called her when she walked into Underworld a lifetime ago. Heroine of the Wasteland, that's what she is, or at least used to be. She isn't young anymore, and she sure as fuck isn't a hero anymore either.<p>

Eighteen years ago she bought him. Owned him. She still does. Eighteen years ago she single-handedly destroyed the Enclave. Eighteen years ago she became a saint in the eyes of the starving and the dying and the hopeless and the dreamless. Eighteen years ago she was a revolutionary who had overthrown the corrupt and the wicked. Savior. Hero. God.

Seventeen years ago she finally came home to the white tower in the middle of the badlands. She found a pile of corpses in the basement, all naked and bloody. Seventeen years ago she stuck a knife into Roy Phillips' back and took the tower over herself. Seventeen years ago she finally told the Brotherhood of Steel to fuck off. She could give a shit about how many were starving and dying and hopeless and dreamless. She liked to see the caps in her footlocker grow and grow. She had become the corrupt and the wicked. Bitch. Villain. Devil.

And she hated herself for it.

She loathed and despised and raged as she sat there, nameless, at her own bar. He stands behind her, silent and still, always watching. Watching as she slowly swirled red wine in a chipped glass. Watching as she tilted her chin back and swallowed the poison. Watching as she placed the glass back on the counter, tracing the edge with long white fingers. From over her shoulder he could see her face, a face unrecognizable.

Charon could remember when she walked into the Ninth Circle eighteen years ago. She was quiet, reserved, brilliant. He knew this much after just spending one day with her. The first day she had bought his contract.

But nearly two decades had passed. She is 38 years old. Most men and women out here barely make it past 30.

She slightly turns her head to the side, and this is Charon's cue that, for tonight, he may sit beside her. She does not always allow him such a privilege, and he always takes advantage of the opportunity.

He looks at her face as she stares straight ahead, eyes fixed on a spot on the wall behind the bar. Charon can see faint lines trace under her eyes, but those are the only lines he can see. She never smiles and she never laughs. The cheeks and forehead remain smooth.

The jaw is tight and the dark red lips are drawn. She can feel him looking at her and her eyes flash over to him. Cold eyes the color of ice. They narrow but she does not say anything. Charon does not look away. Her face does not change she shifts on the stool and the edge of her pink dress brushes against Charon's legs. The waves of her painfully feminine blonde hair brush over her shoulders as she spins her head back to the side. He looks away.

He fucks her and it is always the same. Rough and painful and quick. He grabs her hair and rips her backwards on his lap, driving hard into her. He wraps his hand around her neck until she is bruised and gasping. He grips her breasts until he can hear her breath catch in her throat. He hurts her because he thinks that this is what she wants. He thinks that the only thing she can feel anymore is hate and pain and cruelty. There is no softness here.

They never kiss, never hold each other, never speak. He dresses and leaves and she lets him. He turns towards the door and catches her in the corner of his eye. She is still sitting on the bed, chest heaving, staring at a spot on the wall. Her throat is bruised and Charon can see the outlines of red handprints on her ribs. And she is crying.

Charon pauses because he has never seen her cry before. The expression on her face remains tight and cold, but there are two wet lines falling down her cheeks. Charon does not think that she even knows that she is crying. He sits back on the bed but she doesn't notice him, or at least she pretends not to. He reaches out and carefully brushes a tear away and she flinches away from him, her eyes wide. Then she reaches up and touches her face, and for the first time she realizes that she is crying. First she looks shocked, but the features of her face quickly become hateful.

They never touched outside of sex and Charon had just crossed a line. He had broken an unspoken rule. She sneered at him with such loathing that for the first time in eighteen years, Charon actually felt pain in his chest. She opened her mouth to punish him but he grabbed her arms and kissed her, just barely pushing his lips on hers. Even though he could not see her face, he knew her eyes were open.

He doesn't grab her face or grip her arms, and she doesn't move away. She lets him part her lips with his tongue. She tastes bitter and her mouth is cold. Then she sobs, and it is a horrible, retched, choked sound that comes from her lips. When he moves back she pulls her hand back and hits his face so hard that he can hear his jaw crack. He just kisses her again.

He loves her because she hates him. She despises him. She despises his rotting skin and his ragged strands of hair. She despises the way he smells. He smells like dust and leather. She despises knowing that he loves her. She despises knowing that she loves him back.


	2. Chapter 2

Well, I lied. This was -supposed- to be a oneshot, but I had a few ideas and wanted to expand a bit. I'm not expecting this story to be any longer than five chapters, and I'm not planning on the chapters to be very long either. Thank you to those who reviewed and favorited.

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><p>She was always out the door at 8:00.<p>

He stands outside of her room, still and silent. When he stretches his jaw he can taste blood. She had cracked a tooth when she hit him last night.

8:06, she was still in there. Charon swallowed and shifted on his feet. He could still taste her.

8:15, he takes a tentative step towards the door, reconsiders, and stepped back.

8:32 she finally opens the door, meets his yellow eyes for just a moment, turns on her heel and walks away. He follows behind her because nothing has changed.

They sit outside, or at least she does. He stands behind her because nothing has changed. She stares at an untouched cup of bitter, cold coffee and an untouched plate of bitter, cold food. He keeps his eyes on her always unless a resident or guard gets just a little too close. He glares them away and his eyes fall back on her.

A Ghoul waiter runs past, silently sweeps up the coffee and the food and spins back around the corner. She doesn't move a muscle. Charon swallows blood again and she turns back towards him. He flinches because he is not sure if this is his cue. She rarely offers him the privilege of sitting with her twice in a row. He takes a risk and sits down.

She turns back to stare at the spot on the table where her coffee was. Charon watches the eyes shift and the lips quirk.

"You will not touch me like that again. Do you understand?"

She wasn't asking, she was commanding, demanding.

"Very well."

Charon sees her cheeks tighten and the ice eyes flash over to him. She will not admit it, but she wishes that he had not agreed to her request so easily. Charon wishes he had not either.

He would admit it if she asked. He'd admit that he would willingly do unspeakable and terrible things if she only asked it. He would admit that he would give his own life to touch her one more time. Not grab or grip or rip or bruise, but hold, kiss, caress.

Her eyes harden and she tries so hard to become the woman he knows her to be, but the image is ruined. Charon has seen her cry, sob, fall apart, and he knows her secret. He knows that she isn't as cold and inhuman as she wishes she was. She knows that he knows, and she hates him for it.

Charon had seen something he was never supposed to see, and he would not be forgiven. Not by her and not by himself.

She stands and he follows. When she moves, he moves. When she breathes, he breathes. When she blinks, he blinks. He is supposed to be nothing more than a shadow, but what he witnessed last night had thrown the balance completely. Now Charon feels like he is always hesitating behind her. They were no longer in sync, and they could both feel it.

The routine has been thrown, and she grits her teeth and retreats to the elevator. He follows with uncertainty, and she glares at him coldly when he lags behind. She retreats to her room and Charon to his. He stops at his door and looks down, closing his eyes. What they had was so simple, so clear. She speaks, he acts. But now...

He lies on his bed, closes his eyes, tries so hard to force her from his mind, but he can't. Not anymore.

She hesitates outside his door, one white hand poised on the doorknob. She is clenching her jaw so hard that her head hurts. Her muscles tense as she goes to turn away, but then she stops. She closes her eyes and looks down. This was not so simple anymore.

She shoves the door open and he sits up on the bed. She doesn't want him to say anything, so he doesn't. She doesn't want him to move, so he doesn't. She leans down and kisses him again. She doesn't want him to touch her, but he wraps his arms around her shoulders. She wants him to push her away, force her away, but he pulls her closer. She wants to hurt him, punish him, kill him, but she runs hands down his chest and his back and he moans against her mouth.

She pulls away. Her eyes are dead. She shakes her head but leans into his palm on her cheek. She hates that she loves when he touches her like this. She hates feeling like a human, like a woman. She looks at him and his eyes are dead too.

"Touch me."

"Very well."


	3. Chapter 3

All those years spent shoving down any love and caring and understanding. It had been so easy for her to replace those emotions with hate and loathing and disgust. Disgust with herself and disgust with the whole world. One single kiss, just a touch of his rough lips, that had been enough to erase years of hard work.

He touches her now. Never roughly or painfully, not anymore. She still never admits that she loves it when he touches that one spot on her throat. When he strokes the white line that was cut across it so long ago. As the days pass, Charon watches her face soften. She does not clench her jaw anymore, the icy eyes are not as hard and cold as they used to be.

But as the days and the weeks and the months and the years passed, Charon noticed something else change about her as well.

He knows that she is dying. People can only breathe in and live in the radiated air and water for so long before it kills them. Sometimes she will close her eyes for what seems like hours, her long fingers pushed against her temples, trying to force away the pain in her head. Sometimes she will stand and Charon has to grab her before she falls to the ground, her legs weak and her eyes blurring. Even though she stopped smoking years ago, sometimes she still coughs up blood.

She still sits at that same stool, her body white and thin and trembling as she tries so hard to keep that hard edge to her eyes, the hard edge fading as she gets sicker and as she loves Charon more. Her hand shakes as she picks up her nearly empty glass and downs red wine like poison in her veins. She does not care because she knows that she is dying.

Some days they never leave her room because she cannot stand up, but Charon does not care because he is there with her. He holds her and runs rough but careful fingers through her hair as she breathes deeply, her eyes closed tight as she tries painfully to force oxygen into dying lungs. When he pulls his hand away, a few blonde strands stay wrapped around his fingers. He swallows tightly, forcing down the hard lump in his throat. She will die before she loses all her hair. She will die beautiful. This he knows for certain.

She looks at him and tells him that she loves him. Her whispers are so hoarse and quiet that Charon can barely hear her, but he can see the soft curve of her lips as they form the words that he already knew to be true. He knew before she ever did.

One day he leaves her alone, one final request. When he comes back the charred remains of his contract lie on the floor next to her bed. The smoke rises softly, weaving around her fingers which dangle over the side of the mattress. When she sees him she drops the lighter and just barely smiles. He does not feel any release or joy, only profound misery. He holds her and he knows the exact moment when she dies, her last breath falling through her lips as he presses her to his chest.

Charon stays there for an eternity, not moving and barely breathing. She looks as if she could just be asleep. He carefully lays her back on the bed. He smooths her hair around her face and moves her arms down to her sides and just looks at her. He swallows again, tasting salt as a tear falls into the corner of his mouth. The tear is bitter and it tastes like her. Charon looks down at the pile of ashes that used to be his contract. He can still read one small part of the text, binding and permanent. He can read "til death."

"Til death," he says as he presses the gun against his temple.

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><p>Well, I usually don't write anything this depressing, but there it is. I hope those that read it enjoyed it. Thank you for the reviews and the favorites.<p> 


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